


Turn Right

by sunken_standard



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU (sort of), Abortion, Dark, F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 07:24:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10329197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunken_standard/pseuds/sunken_standard
Summary: Please, just turn your head this time.  We'll pretend it was an accident, a miscommunication.  Let me kiss you, just once before it's really over.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this came out of nowhere a few days ago. And by nowhere, I mean the updated Holidaysat221B prompt list (like, four of them, but it's not really a fill for any of them) and Jude in Clique. I had notes for something along this line for a 5+1, but a 5+1 is way too much of a commitment, so you're getting like an expanded version of #2 without the others. It covers ground I already covered in other fic, but at least the pairing is different, so, I mean, I'm only being a little redundant. 
> 
> Betad by the ever-amazing madder_badder. Not britpicked.
> 
> Also, this is pretty fucking dark. There's infidelity and abortion and just malaise everywhere. There's sex, though, so I mean, that's life-affirming, right? (And it's phone sex, so it counts as Wank!lock; just getting ready for the weekend uptick in ship hate.) But yeah. Dark.

*

 

It killed him to let her go.

 

Please, just turn your head this time. We'll pretend it was an accident, a miscommunication. Let me kiss you, just once before it's really over.

 

She closed her eyes.

 

He could have. He so very easily could have.

 

He didn't, though, because he meant it. She deserved every happiness, and he would do nothing but cause her pain. He knew this; it was in his nature to destroy everything he loved.

 

*

 

Somewhere, in another life, another Sherlock Holmes did. He deliberately hit the corner of her mouth, just enough to play it off as a miscalculation.

 

Somewhere, in that other life, another Molly Hooper turned her head, enough to shatter any notion of miscalculation, crumpling plausible deniability and tossing it in the bin like a sweet wrapper.

 

Her mouth was as soft, as gentle as he always imagined. He'd been kissed a few times in his life, usually rather drunkenly by someone on a dance floor, his lips and tongue numb from coke, too high to pay enough attention; he'd never had a proper kiss. He wasn't sure if he should touch her, too.

 

Her right hand—the one without the ring—came up to cup his jaw as she angled her head to slot their lips more fully together.

 

He could smell her make-up, dusty mineral eyeshadow and mascara, waxy lipstick and a dab of moisturiser.

 

Finally, finally, he let himself touch, cradling her skull, the back of her neck, with tentative hands.

 

She gasped at the coolness of the leather of his gloves; the spell was broken. She stepped away quickly, unable to meet his eyes.

 

"I'm sorry," he said, cutting off her apology, taking the blame.

 

She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, her face turned down and away. Her left hand flexed at her side and he knew she was feeling the weight of the ring there without touching it, in the same way John felt the weight of a gun in his left hand when the tremor wanted to resurface.

 

"I can't," she said finally, so soft and so broken he wished he'd never come back at all.

 

Everything in him wanted to argue, _of course you can; I know it was me, once; let it be me now_.

 

"I know," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

 

She turned, left.

 

*

 

He wasn't expecting to run into her on the roof of Bart's. Not _the_ roof, but the tiny section situated (rather ironically) directly above oncology, where the maintenance area for the lifts was; officially, only maintenance staff were allowed up there, but unofficially it was where all the doctors went to sneak a fag in a tiny act of rebellion against red tape, the Nanny State, and good sense.

 

He watched, dumbfounded, as she lifted the cigarette to her lips with natural ease and took a drag, holding the smoke in for a second before tipping her head back to watch the cloud rise against the grey afternoon sky.

 

"You don't smoke," he said finally, stupidly.

 

"Didn't any more, until..." she trailed off with a shrug.

 

He tapped his own cigarette out of the packet and lit it, relishing the nicotine as it hit his bloodstream. Centred him.

 

"I quit after I started my specialist training."

 

"Saw enough black lungs and tumours?"

 

"Something like that," she said, taking another drag.

 

Her father, then. She'd never said what it was, but cancer was most likely. _Stupid_ , he chastised himself.

 

He leaned back against the wall of the maintenance shed in the kind of uncomfortable sprawl he hadn't done since he was a gangly teenager trying to look older and more world-weary than he could possibly understand.

 

"I've never cheated on anyone," she said, her voice low and smoke-rough.

 

"I shouldn't think you the type," he said, trying for something placating, neutral, middle of the road. Complimentary of her moral character, even.

 

She shot him a look, anger and hurt flashing in her eyes for the briefest of moments before she glanced away, flicked the side of her thumb against the filter to get rid of the ash before taking another drag.

 

She took it the wrong way, of course she did. Probably thought he meant she was so desperate and undesirable that infidelity had never been an option for her.

 

"I was so afraid you'd died," she said, then, looking out over the rooftops in front of her. "I was the only one who knew, and I was afraid you'd left me with that one terrible secret. They all got to grieve and move on, but not me."

 

He'd never thought of it. Not once. He'd only thought _when I get back, when I set it right, then_. He'd only thought of her in terms of the future, never the present while he was out there, alone in the wilds. She was part of the goal, the reward at the end.

 

She spoke again before he could find his own words.

 

"When I met him, he was wearing a Blur t-shirt and ripped jeans. I mean, he was still a bit public school, but I didn't know what he did for work, how he dressed."

 

He wanted to tell her she didn't need to explain, or to justify it, or to rub his nose in it.

 

She looked at him, then, the weight in her gaze making him just as uncomfortable as the unreadable look in her eyes. So much had changed.

 

"He said I looked sad, that night. He asked me if I was okay." Her smile had a bitter twist to it he'd never seen on her face before.

 

"Two months later he asked me to marry him. That was five months ago. June twelfth."

 

His stomach sank. The anniversary. What kind of a clot—

 

She took one last drag of her cigarette and scraped the cherry against the low dividing wall next to her, pocketed the butt with a crinkle of plastic inside her coat.

 

"I'll, uh, I'll be in my office," she said before ducking past him. He took it to mean _I'll be anywhere you aren't_.

 

*

 

He tried his best to leave her alone. To remove himself from her life, as he no longer had a place in it.

 

Of course, nothing was ever so easy; Mary had befriended her and all he ever heard about was Molly Molly Molly when the topic of the wedding came up. Molly went with me to look at dresses. Molly and I went to three bakeries today. Molly isn't doing a church wedding, but she went with me anyway to narrow down the choices.

 

He liked Mary quite a bit, but he began to loathe her, too. She was too clever by far and he couldn't help but think she knew more than she was letting on. She probably thought his gut-churning, heartsick self-hatred was some cute schoolboy crush, that he was pathetic enough to perk up his ears every time he heard the name of the object of his affection, eager for any scrap of information about her tossed his way.

 

Molly gave me a stack of bridal magazines. Molly hasn't thought about a honeymoon yet, really, but she thinks Vienna is nice. Molly doesn't like a cascade bouquet, she thinks a hand-tied one is more elegant.

 

He managed to avoid Molly almost completely until Christmas. When he did have to see her for a case, he kept things short, professional. She did the same. They'd become strangers.

 

And then, Christmas Eve. It was at John and Mary's this time, but the usual suspects were in attendance, plus one utterly forgettable blonde bridesmaid-to-be. Molly was late, as was her habit. When she did finally grace them with her presence, she was alone.

 

Tom was in Dublin until the new year, business. She didn't seem particularly bothered.

 

She chatted with everyone as she always did, sipped her wine. About an hour after getting there she began to eye the door and he knew exactly what she was thinking, the same thing he'd been thinking since before she'd even shown up. Lestrade, bless his idiot heart, finally shot Sherlock a look that said relief was at hand.

 

Molly followed them out into the postage stamp of paving slabs that passed for the (soon-to-be) Watsons' back garden; Lestrade did a poor job of hiding his surprise when she fished the cigarettes from her bag.

 

Her lighter was dying and the wind pulled out the flame; if he were a more debonair type he would have cupped his hands around the cigarette and lit it for her. Instead, he extended his own lighter, held loosely between his curled fore- and middle fingers.

 

She thanked him, took the lighter with only the slightest brush of her fingers to his. She lit her cigarette and handed the lighter back, exhaled the first drag up into the cold night air.

 

"Didn't know you smoked," Lestrade said, tedious.

 

"I quit years back. I started again a little while ago. Wish I hadn't, but one leads to another..." She shrugged.

 

Wonderful. Another thing he had to feel guilty about.

 

Lestrade nodded, all too familiar. He'd be quitting again as of the first, slip up once before May, buy a packet over the summer and make it last until autumn, then the routine of patches, hypnosis, gum until this time next year they were all out here again, sucking down fags like the world was ending.

 

"Tom smoke?"

 

"God no. He hates it. While the cat's away, though," she held up her cigarette as if in a toast, took another drag.

 

 _I've never cheated_ echoed through his head.

 

He let himself wonder exactly why she'd said that. He'd assumed guilt, assumed a declaration.

 

What if it had been an offer?

 

He eyed her speculatively; she hadn't put much effort at all into her appearance past the bare minimum she normally did for things outside of work; that is to say, she wore a touch more make-up, her hair was down, she wore a dress and tights and a coordinating cardigan rather than whatever she pulled off of the top of the laundry basket after rolling out of bed.

 

Not like that other Christmas. The one he'd delete if it didn't serve as a reminder to _pay-fucking-attention_.

 

Not enough of a reminder, apparently.

 

He took a drag of his cigarette, rocked back on his heels.

 

Could he?

 

He took in the curve of her neck and the hollow of her throat; her thin, delicate hands.

 

He never said he was a good man. Quite the opposite.

 

It could ruin her life. It could ruin him.

 

If any two people on the planet were capable of hiding an affair, it would be them. He knew what traps to avoid and she could keep a secret better than the entirety of MI6.

 

He watched her lips close around the filter, her jaw slacken and her cheeks hollow as she sucked smoke into her mouth.

 

A plan began to take shape. He was willing to cross a line he never thought he'd cross. For her. Only her.

 

*

 

It was just after one in the morning, Christmas Day. The party had broken up before eleven; there was a cab ride home with Mrs. Hudson (Molly shared with Greg to his place in Hackney, then continued on alone to hers), a good hour of soul-searching and indecision before a text, another cab ride.

 

He'd been in her flat a handful of times before; the first was after the incident at the swimming pool.

 

She'd changed into flannel pyjamas and a baggy jumper, tied her hair back. She'd been watching telly; no, a DVD. A blanket was bunched at one end of the sofa, an ashtray and a half-finished mug of something on the coffee table. Drinking chocolate, by the smell of her. No Bailey's in it, how she normally took it (beer before liquor, never sicker; she'd only had two glasses of wine at the party; had she been anticipating—?).

 

"I won't leave him," she said, her arms crossed against her chest, fingers tucked under the voluminous sleeves of the jumper.

 

"You wouldn't have to," he replied, gauging her reaction. That she'd let him get this far was telling enough.

 

"I wasn't lying when I said I've never cheated."

 

"And I'm not lying when I say I've never been a party to infidelity, either." He chose his words with care so he could cover all bases with one sentence; cheating was a bit hard to do when you've never had a relationship. Or sex. And she didn't need to know that.

 

She gave him a long look. Appraising. Fighting a battle with herself. Losing.

 

"One time only. For closure," she said, taking a step closer.

 

He nodded; they both knew it was a lie.

 

*

 

They didn't use a condom. She had them, but was too paranoid about the evidence. She was on birth control; he pulled out anyway.

 

He'd barely caught his breath when she was out of bed and across the room, struggling on her jumper as she went, opening the window and lighting up. The cold didn't seem to bother her; side effect of working in a meat locker, he supposed.

 

"That was a mistake," she said. Her fingers were trembling the slightest bit.

 

It hurt to hear her say it.

 

She'd enjoyed it, he knew she had. He'd made her come twice. She hadn't faked it.

 

Still, he couldn't disagree, exactly. He'd burdened her with another secret, this one more shameful than the last. At least the other had been noble, in its own way.

 

He wasn't sure how to respond. He got out of bed, slid his pants on. Padded over to her and tapped a cigarette out of her pack, lit it. The nicotine would help him think.

 

"No one will ever know," he said, trying to reassure her. It felt hollow. He felt hollow.

 

"That's not why it was a mistake," she said. She didn't look at him; she tipped her head down and scratched her forehead with her fingertips, cigarette dangling.

 

"What the hell is wrong with me?" she asked herself. "He loves me. Or, he thinks he does, but it's the same thing. And I just went and threw that away."

 

If he were a braver man, a stupider man, he would have said _**I**_ _love you, I_ _ **know**_ _I do, and it's_ _ **not**_ _the same thing_. She'd think it a lie, another one of his manipulation tactics.

 

"You didn't throw anything away. I showed up on Christmas Eve needing help with a case and you did help; I tried to sleep on your sofa and then complained about how terrible it was until I commandeered your bed. And I smoke like a chimney in your flat even when you ask me not to." He blew smoke back into the bedroom to punctuate.

 

The framework for her lie was the best he could offer. She could drape it with whatever details she wished, he'd corroborate by dismissing it entirely with a roll of his eyes and an annoyed _are you still talking, why are you still talking?_ if he had to.

 

She looked at him askance.

 

"I need help on a lot of cases and I'm known to keep odd hours," he elaborated, casually dragging from the cigarette while his heart pounded with what he was proposing. "I have very little regard for anyone's personal boundaries and I constantly take advantage of the better natures of the people around me."

 

She knew what he was suggesting. Clever Molly. Clever, clever Molly. And she was considering it.

 

"I'm not always a doormat and the work _is_ important," she said, measured. Knowing; decided.

 

"Often lives are at stake," he said conversationally.

 

"And in those situations, time _is_ of the essence," she agreed, giving herself fully over to the lie they were constructing.

 

He couldn't help himself when his lips curled into a little smile around his cigarette.

 

*

 

They didn't have rules, but there were things they never did.

 

She never spent the night at his flat.

 

He never touched her when someone else was in the room or could walk into the room. Accidental touches were the subject of awkward apologies that made everyone around them cringe for the both of them, for what they were making so obvious without seeing it themselves.

 

They never left evidence. No condoms. No dirty sheets. No souvenirs. No marks.

 

They didn't talk about it. Before, during, or after. They talked, and rather a lot, but just not about The Lie. Since The Relationship was tangential to The Lie, they never talked about that, either, past the odd bit of scheduling.

 

They both quit smoking. Mostly. A thick cloud of smoke helped cover the fog of sex in any given room. Sherlock took the blame.

 

*

 

They both knew it was more than sex.

 

They both pretended they didn't know.

 

The Lie swallowed its own tail.

 

*

 

It only took three months to get careless.

 

He left a mark on the back of her shoulder. She went with Mary two days later to try on dresses. The next day there was a case (a real one, not the kind he needed "help" with); Mary spent too long staring at his teeth.

 

They sometimes forgot the awkward distance they were supposed to keep; in the lab, on the same real case, they were a well-oiled machine, personal space and tight smiles forgotten in favour of results, communicating in their own silent language most of the time. John was there to witness.

 

After that real case, there was a near-miss with Mrs. Hudson; Molly covered by giving him a very loud lecture about tearing her away from her own bed just to take care of him because he couldn't be bothered to take care of himself by doing simple things like eating and sleeping like a sane person.

 

There was an uncomfortable thread of truth in her words, even if they were only theatrics. Sex hadn't even crossed either of their minds the night before; the case had left him unsettled and he'd only wanted to fall asleep with his arms around her and his ear over her heart. That she'd indulged him without question was the troubling part. Asking for her comfort, begging her tenderness wasn't part of The Lie.

 

*

 

"He wants to set a date. He's getting more insistent." She was on her stomach, head pillowed on her forearms, one knee bent and foot circling idly in the air. Her hair was wet because they'd fucked in the shower again; it was too early in the week to change the sheets and there wasn't enough time to wash them.

 

He ran a fingertip over the bumps of her vertebrae. "End it," he said impulsively. His mouth was always faster than his brain after sex.

 

She looked at him. Really looked.

 

"Then what?" she asked, her tone neutral. There was a challenge there.

 

He looked away because he was a coward. "June is nice. Pity the twelfth won't fall on a Saturday until 2021. Making him wait six years seems a bit excessive." _Especially considering_ _ **you**_ _couldn't even wait two._

 

Her lips twisted into something that could be a smile any other time; she shook her head before turning her face completely away.

 

*

 

It all started to shake apart like an overloaded machine; he threw himself into wedding planning with John and Mary because he wanted to shove Molly out of the process entirely. He wanted her to forget about weddings.

 

Mary gave him questioning looks but kept silent; he didn't know if it was tact or reluctance to get involved.

 

*

 

And then, The Anniversary.

 

It was _his_ day first. It was the day Molly Hooper saved his life, saved the lives of his friends, saved the world.

 

She was going to have dinner with Tom; straight from work to meet him at the restaurant.

 

He found her on the roof. Not the one above oncology. _The_ roof. He hadn't been up there himself since that day; he had no reason. He had an inkling she'd been up there at least twice since.

 

She paced the spot where Moriarty's body had fallen, cigarette loose in her fingers; she knew what she was doing. He didn't know what was going through her head, though, and that troubled him.

 

"I don't think I can do this any longer, Sherlock," she said. She scraped her toe over where the bloodstain had begun to spread years ago.

 

His heart dropped into his stomach. She sounded so broken. He'd done that. Three years ago, seven months ago, six months ago, whenever he'd started it; she was ending it.

 

"Molly—" he said softly, starting a thought he had no idea how to finish.

 

"I'm pregnant."

 

His mind went blank.

 

She took a drag off of her cigarette, made a face at it.

 

"You don't even care whose it is, do you?" So bitter.

 

He knew exactly whose it was. He knew when it happened. He'd been getting too cavalier, less careful the deeper they got into The Lie. She'd missed a pill; he'd been too caught up in the moment to pull out. Unlikely, but that was an accurate summation of everything in his life thus far.

 

She couldn't have known for more than a week. He'd last seen her four days ago.

 

"When did you find out?" he blurted.

 

She looked at him, _why the fuck does that even matter_? "Two days ago."

 

And she hadn't phoned him.

 

"What are you going to do?"

 

"Tomorrow evening I'm very quietly going to miscarry after my fiancé leaves for two weeks in Auckland."

 

He felt sick. Angry, helpless.

 

"Were you even going to tell me?"

 

"Would I have told you just now if I were going to hide it from you?"

 

It took everything in him not to offer, to plead, to demand; they both knew it had to happen this way. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do. He couldn't be any kind of father and he'd never let another man claim ownership of _his_ child.

 

"You shouldn't be alone for it," he said finally.

 

She shrugged, took a drag of the cigarette before dropping it in the spot where Moriarty's head had landed, ground it out with her toe.

 

He took her lack of a verbal response as consent for him to be there.

 

*

 

It was entirely less dramatic than he'd been expecting. She spent most of the time on the sofa with a heating pad against her back and a blanket over her lap, working her way through her Netflix queue. He was scolded for hovering and sat next to her on the sofa; he wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch her.

 

Eventually she leaned into his side and he put his arm around her; he wished he'd never got them into this in the first place. If only he hadn't turned his face into hers that day. If only he'd clamped down on impulse, not made the offer. If only he'd fucking _pulled out_. If only, if only.

 

It was all over in a few hours. He curled up behind her, shirtless, in her bed. Oxytocin, he explained, knowing she'd read as much as he had. She didn't push him away.

 

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she said after a time, her voice barely above a whisper.

 

"No, it wasn't," he agreed, giving in to impulse and dropping a kiss to her shoulder.

 

They fell quiet again, until—

 

"Have you ever been in love?"

 

He didn't know what to say to that. It should be obvious to her, but The Lie continued to turn, never-ending, all-consuming.

 

"Do you really want the answer to that question?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Then yes, I have." Only once. And it's terrible.

 

"What happened?"

 

How to answer...

 

"Life," he said vaguely. "Timing. Outside circumstances. What happens to most people, I suppose."

 

Then, before he could stop himself, "Do you love Tom?"

 

She went rigid in his arms and he thought she was going to pull away, order him to leave, scream at him, something; she exhaled a sigh like a death rattle and went limp. "Not nearly as much as I'm supposed to. He was there when it was bad, when I was at the lowest I've ever been, and he stayed. And I'm so, so grateful. But he's not..."

 

She choked on a bitter noise. "I'm thirty-six. I have a career and a flat and an address book full of people, but I need more than that. I need... I need someone who's going to be there."

 

 _And who's with you right now?_ he thought cruelly. _Where's the man that claims to love you so much, but doesn't even_ —

 

"I need someone who's not going to disappear without a trace."

 

She always knew just how to cut him off at the knees.

 

He sighed, touched his forehead to the back of her skull as he pulled her closer. He wanted to promise her nothing like that would ever happen again, but he couldn't. His life wasn't like other people's. It wasn't normal.

 

He simply couldn't be what she needed.

 

*

 

He didn't see or hear from her again for another three weeks after that long weekend; he hadn't been able to make himself leave the day after and Molly wasn't up to going into work on Monday, so he'd stayed until she left Tuesday morning. Over the course of those sixty-odd hours, they'd probably touched more than they had since the whole thing had begun.

 

*

 

It was six weeks until the wedding and he was sick to death of seating charts and coordinating schedules and napkin folding; he just wanted to move to an island with a population of one and spend his days talking to crabs and making housewares out of coconuts. He wanted the whole thing to be over so life could go back to normal.

 

The text came at eight at night; **Any interesting cases lately?**

 

It was part of the code; _are you up for it?_ , more or less.

 

Oh, he was. Until then, they hadn't gone more than ten days without some kind of sex since it began; he wanted to fuck her until she forgot her own name.

 

And that was exactly the reason why he knew he couldn't.

 

He was still debating how he should turn her down when his phone rang. Because he was an idiot and he wanted to hear her voice, he answered.

 

"Molly." He kept his tone neutral.

 

"I just, um, I just needed to hear a friendly voice," she said. She sounded sad.

 

"Are you alright?" he asked, a tendril of worry threading through his gut. This wasn't part of the scope of The Lie. They didn't do this kind of thing.

 

"Mm," she affirmed. "I mean, nothing's happened or anything. I only... Nevermind. I shouldn't have phoned."

 

"Wait," he said, too eager. He started for his bedroom, feeling the need for privacy. He was already stripped to his pants; the flat had yet to cool off from the heat of the day. He didn't need to be any more exposed.

 

"It's fine," he said, voice softening. He glanced at the kitchen door on his way past; locked. Good.

 

"So, ah, how have you been?" she asked after a moment of unsure silence.

 

"Busy. Bored," he answered. He hated this kind of social nicety, but he'd take anything he could get right then. "You?"

 

"Same old, really," she said. Her voice was quiet, breathy, soft.

 

He wanted suck it in, to feel it curl inside him like smoke. He sat on the edge of the bed.

 

"I miss you," she confessed. The admission knocked the air from his lungs, made his heart beat violently in his chest. This was new territory.

 

"Are you alone?" he asked, knowing she was; the fiancé often worked late on Friday nights, romancing foreign clients for whatever tedious thing he did. Nothing worth remembering.

 

"Mmhm. Will be all night."

 

He wanted to invite her over. He was moderately less inclined to put clothes on again, but he'd be shedding them soon enough once he was in her flat, were she to invite him.

 

 _No_ , he told himself.

 

Seeing her might be out of the question, but maybe... He'd never done anything like it before. Then again, he'd done relatively little until Molly. Just the thought of it sent a jolt of arousal down his spine and right to his cock.

 

"What are you wearing?" He didn't even try to sound sexy or make it a joke. It was as much a dare as it was a question.

 

She made a little noise and he knew she was smiling. "Just pants and a vest. Too bloody hot for anything else. You?"

 

"Which pants and which vest?"

 

"The fuchsia cotton ones and a light purple vest. It's more of a camisole, I guess. Spaghetti straps."

 

He pictured it, amused at Molly's perpetual lack of subtlety when it came to her fashion choices, especially underwear. He didn't think she owned a single neutral piece outside of the black cotton bikinis that came in a multipack.

 

He palmed himself through his briefs, visualizing the way the camisole would cling to her breasts, one thin strap loose over her upper arm, having slid off of her shoulder.

 

"Your turn. What are you wearing?" she prompted.

 

He stood and quickly shucked his pants. "Just my watch and a smile," he said cheekily.

 

She laughed and it eased something inside him.

 

"I wish I could kiss you," he said before he realized what he was doing.

 

"I wish you could, too."

 

He pulled the bedclothes back and sat on the edge of his bed again, this time closer to the pillow. "Where do you want me to kiss you?" he asked, feeling himself blushing. There wasn't one inch of her skin he hadn't tasted and _this_ made him go red; ridiculous.

 

"I think I'd want you to start with my mouth. You're amazing at kissing, you know. I mean, of course you know, because you're good at everything, but you're really good with your mouth. As long as no sound is coming out," she teased.

 

He huffed a laugh, closing his eyes and imagining smiling against her lips before kissing her in earnest.

 

"Where else?"

 

"My neck. And then my collarbones. I really like it when you do that. I wish you could use your teeth a little bit more."

 

"You'd want me to leave marks?" God, if only he could. He'd leave his fucking initials on her stomach, her arse.

 

"Mmhmm."

 

He stroked himself firmly, fully hard already. He felt emboldened by the heat, the darkness, the quiet of the night.

 

"You want people to know who left them?"

 

She inhaled sharply. "Yes," she sighed.

 

He let his lips curl into a sharp smile; he wanted to see the look on the fiancé's face when his future wife was in front of him covered in the evidence of his inadequacy. He pushed that thought away; he'd go back to it later.

 

"What are you doing right now?" he asked, wanting a picture of just her as she was right then, nothing else.

 

"I'm touching my neck and I have one hand under my shirt," she said.

 

"What's your hand doing?"

 

"Playing with my nipple. Pretending it's your mouth."

 

It was his turn to hum and sigh, remembering the taste and texture of her breasts, the way she gasped when he curled his tongue around a nipple, how hot it made her when he sucked them just so.

 

"Are you wet?" he asked; there was something unbelievably arousing about being so deliciously crude.

 

"Yes," she breathed. "Are you hard?"

 

"Very."

 

"Are you touching yourself?"

 

"Yes."

 

She made the most delectable noise in the back of her throat; he heard the shift of fabric and the snap of elastic.

 

"Did you take your underwear off?"

 

"No, just ah, slid my hand under them," she said.

 

"Good. I want to take them off of you. Would you like that?" He knew she did; he loved the way she watched him as he hooked his fingers in the waistband and dragged them down over her hips. It was always a bit like Christmas for the both of them.

 

"Yes," she said, her voice high and soft.

 

He wanted to rub his cheek against her stomach, let her feel his five o'clock shadow scrape over the sensitive skin below her navel. He told her as much and she hummed her approval.

 

"I want to run my fingers through your hair. I love your hair. It's so soft."

 

He made a noise low in his throat; he loved it when she did that, too. He'd always hated his hair, it never did what he wanted it to do and half the time it looked terrible, the other half it barely looked presentable. He loved her fixation with it, loved the way it felt when she tugged on it in the throes of passion.

 

He firmed his grip on his cock and went from a slow, teasing idle to something with a bit more intent; he didn't want to get too close yet, but he wanted more.

 

"What do you want me to do next?" he asked.

 

"I want you to go down on me," she said, her voice husky.

 

"Do you want me to tease you? Or do you want me to make you come?"

 

"I want to you to fuck me with your mouth," she breathed into the phone.

 

He strangled a groan; they never did this. They never talked like this. Not this openly, not so boldly. Not this filthy.

 

"I want to taste you. I want to feel the way you quiver when I lick you. When I suck on your clit, flick it with my tongue." He would be embarrassed about it later.

 

She moaned. "God that feels so good. Wish you were here with me," she panted.

 

"I want to fuck you," he all but growled into the phone. His body was covered in sweat and his heart was thundering in his ears; he wanted nothing more than to put her legs over his shoulders and bend her in half while he drove into her.

 

She made another choked off noise; she was getting close already. He knew all the noises she made.

 

"Tell me how you want me to fuck you," he breathed, swiping his thumb through the moisture beading on the tip of his cock, picturing her tongue flicking over the slit, rolling around the head.

 

"I want you on top of me. My legs around your waist. I want you to pin my wrists."

 

He exhaled harshly; he'd always wanted to to do that, never dared. Many times he'd wanted to control her, to dominate her in the bedroom. She held all the power in their arrangement, they both knew it; sometimes he wanted to pretend he had some over her, too. He'd always been afraid of that dark impulse, what it might mean, what kind of man he really might be.

 

"Fuck, Molly," he said raggedly into the phone. He stroked himself roughly, desperately needing to— "I want to come inside you. Please, let me come inside you."

 

"Yes, yes, I want you to, I want you to come inside me," she said in a rush; he imagined her head thrown back, her pinned hands grasping and flexing next to her face, red with the height of arousal and the cords of her neck standing out as he pounded into her—

 

He groaned as he came, thick ropes hitting his stomach, his chest.

 

"Did you come?" she whispered urgently, so close herself.

 

"Yeah," he croaked, head buzzing.

 

"I want to see it. Take—take a picture."

 

It was stupid, he knew it was, but he didn't care. He tapped the screen, held it at arm's length, snapped a shot of the mess on his torso, his cock—still red, still hard; if she were there he could probably fuck her a second time in short order. He sent the picture and put the phone back to his ear, greedy to hear her reaction.

 

He heard her shift, heard her intake of breath when she opened the message.

 

"Oh God that's hot," she said.

 

He couldn't help but smile to himself a bit.

 

Her voice was rough, urgent as she started talking again. "I want you to fuck me, I want to feel you inside me, Sherlock. Fuck, I'm so close, I want you to make me come, I want to—" she ended on a wordless cry and he knew she had; quite spectacularly by the sound of it.

 

His cock twitched; he could definitely go again. Didn't want to, though; he might go further, say something he couldn't take back.

 

"Wow," she said after a few moments.

 

"Yeah?" he asked quietly, all pretence and formality long-gone between them. He imagined her next to him, head pillowed on his arm. It was entirely too hot to cuddle, but he always wanted her close.

 

"Mm," she answered. "I've never had phone sex before. I can't believe we just did that."

 

He huffed a quiet laugh. "You bring out things in me I never realized I was capable of, Molly Hooper," he said lightly.

 

"Pretty sure I can say the same thing about you, Sherlock Holmes."

 

She never said his full name like that. Never. It was strange to hear it. Thrilling.

 

"I still want to kiss you," he admitted.

 

"I still want you to," she said, a sweet, earnest note to her voice that made him want to get into a cab right then, get down on his knees and beg her to just leave the fiancé for good and be with him; he'd promise anything and give her everything if she'd just let him.

 

He swallowed hard, disgusted with himself. The Lie was what they had, The Lie was who they were. It had utterly consumed them and changing now was impossible.

 

"I should shower," he said, not even needing to fake the regretful tone. If anything, he needed to lighten it up a bit, lest she suspect anything amiss.

 

"I probably should too," she sighed. "Goodnight, Sherlock."

 

"Goodnight, Molly."

 

He tossed the phone aside; he should have reminded her to delete the picture.

 

*

 

After that night on the phone she hadn't texted him. He'd considered making up an excuse, something about John's stag do, to go and see her in the lab; in the end he hadn't gone through with it.

 

He saw her just once, the week before the wedding. He'd done so well with maintaining distance until that point. It was for a legitimate case, to begin with. He'd been in the lab when he finally solved it, two days without sleep rapidly catching up with him; she told him to just go back to her flat since it was closer and sleep it off. He did sleep, better than he had in months; when he woke up she wasn't there and he left because he was a coward.

 

And then came the wedding, which was going to be absolute torture. Part of him wished Mary had asked Molly to be a bridesmaid; the other part was relieved he wouldn't have to walk down the aisle with her because some ironies were too bitter even for him. He suspected Mary had taken that into consideration when making her choices.

 

He tried not to look at her during the ceremony. He'd never actually seen her cry, not even during that weekend in June; when she started sniffing and wiping her eyes during the vows it did something to him he didn't like.

 

The bridesmaid came onto him during the first round of pictures outside the church. He caught Molly out of the corner of his eye; she looked like she wanted to rip the woman's throat out, even as the fiancé had a casually possessive arm around her. Wasn't that rich?

 

He plastered on a smile and made nice; he wanted Molly to get a taste of the last nine months of the emotional hell he'd been through. It was petty and a little cruel, but ultimately harmless.

 

Or so he thought.

 

There was a bit of excitement; as soon as that was all done and dusted and Lestrade was leading the photographer away, he nipped out for a well-deserved fag with Janine in tow, only to run into Molly.

 

She gave them a tight smile and took a drag on her cigarette; it was at least her third of the evening. The fiancé was nowhere in sight and oh how he wished Janine hadn't tagged along.

 

"Your speech was nice," she said, stretching her legs in front of her and pointing her toes while she leaned back on the stone bench in the smoker's area of the garden.

 

"Thank you," he said, pulling in his first drag and relishing the burn. "Tom's theory was..." he squinted, looking for a word like nice or clever, but neither of those.

 

"Completely mortifying." She gave him one of her sardonic smiles, the kind he wanted to kiss off her face.

 

"It was creative," Janine piped up, plopping down next to Molly and slipping her shoes off like they were at a sleepover.

 

It was only because he knew Molly so well that he saw the tension in her. The pettiest part of him enjoyed her discomfort; a bigger part wanted to pull her to her feet and tuck her up next to his side where she belonged. Or just drag her out of there, first dance and everything else be damned. He'd left the recording of his song with Mrs. Hudson as a contingency, should an emergency arise. He'd even phoned Mycroft hoping for a surprise _your country needs you!_ , but all he got was his brother being a pain in the arse.

 

Janine was chattering amicably to Molly; apparently they'd met at Mary's hen night and they were now the best of friends. Janine was friendly, engaging, quick with a laugh and a smile; she had none of Molly's subtlety.

 

God he missed her. It hurt to look at her. He'd spent most of the meal scheming; he wanted to dance with her. He'd narrowed down the scenarios to the three most likely ones; he could make it happen and no one would ever so much as bat an eyelash.

 

Looking at her right then, though, he knew he couldn't go through with it.

 

He had to end it. He had to sever ties, finally end The Lie.

 

He pitched his cigarette, played his damn song, and went home. Alone.

 

*

 

It was just after two when his phone rang. He wasn't sleeping; he'd been propped in his chair smoking himself sick because he was so fucking tempted to go out and score that it scared the hell out of him. He'd been clean for five years and change (didn't know the exact day, since having a sobriety date was something only addicts concerned themselves with; he was a _user_ and there was a distinction).

 

"What?" he answered, not caring enough to hide his annoyance, but unable to let himself ignore the call.

 

"I can't do it," she whispered into the phone. She sounded like she'd either been crying or maybe still was; the echo of her voice told him she was in her bathroom. "I can't marry him, Sherlock."

 

He wasn't going to let himself hope. She was probably drunk. It had been an open bar, after all. He stayed silent, let her know he was still there by taking a drag on his cigarette.

 

"I just... I don't know how to tell him. I can't... I can't break his heart."

 

 _You've been breaking mine for almost a year, I should think you have enough practice_ , he thought cruelly. He wanted to say it just to hurt her, but he didn't want her to know the truth of it.

 

Even so, he wasn't about to be kind. Not tonight.

 

"And now you've locked yourself in your bathroom at two in the morning because you've had too much to drink and your fiancé is in the next room sleeping, completely unaware that you've been cheating on him for the last eight months and you want me to absolve you of your guilt."

 

"I can't even... I haven't had sex with him since April. He knows, he's known for months, but he can't admit it. I can't keep doing this any longer, Sherlock," she broke down on a quiet sob. Her next words were whispered, forlorn. "I can't."

 

Her distress pulled at him, a physical sensation. He wanted to rip apart the thing that was hurting her, obliterate it from the face of the earth, but it was herself. It was _him_. Sherlock Holmes, the man that ruined everything he touched.

 

He exhaled harshly, stubbed out his cigarette. "What do you want from me, Molly? Do you want me to tell you whatever it is you want to hear? Come rescue you like you're a maiden locked in a tower? Gift wrap another lie for you so you can get yourself out of it?"

 

She sniffed. "I can't have the only thing that I want from you, Sherlock. You don't... you don't have it in you to give."

 

He recoiled from the sting of her words; it would hurt less to get shot. Not that he ever had been.

 

"You obviously have no idea what I have or what I'm capable of," he said coldly.

 

"Tell me, then. Tell me the truth, Sherlock. What am I to you?"

 

He didn't know how to answer that. She'd asked the wrong question.

 

"What am I to _you_?" he asked, retaliating.

 

"E-everything," she said, hushed, as her voice broke again. He waited for more, but that was apparently her answer.

 

She's upset. She's drunk. It doesn't mean anything. She'll change her mind in the morning.

 

He heard her sniff, wipe her face. She shuffled around, rifled through her handbag, opened the window. The crinkle of plastic, the rasp of a lighter. Inhale, hold, exhale. "How did it get like this, Sherlock?"

 

He tipped his head back against his chair, itching for the prick of the needle, the fire racing up his arm, the flood of white heat and radiance that would block everything out.

 

"I made a mistake," he finally admitted, softly.

 

He heard her sharp exhale and of course she'd taken it wrong; it hurt the most when she thought the least of him, always.

 

"If I'd asked you to wait, would you have?"

 

"Wh—"

 

"Three years ago. Would you have waited?"

 

"I _did_ wait, Sherlock. I waited and waited and I thought you were probably dead. I waited for two years before that, hoping like an idiot something would change. And then it did and nothing changed at all."

 

She always knew how to make him feel like less than nothing. How to cut him to ribbons. If he didn't love her so much, he would hate her. He supposed sometimes they were one and the same.

 

"Wh-what do you want me to do, Molly?" he asked again, flayed alive and begging her for mercy. "For once, just tell me what it is you want from me."

 

She exhaled harshly. "If I answer that, we can't go back, Sherlock. I can't pretend what this is any longer."

 

"Then let's just stop pretending. Tell me what you want from me."

 

She sighed, defeated. "You, Sherlock. I want you. Not just sex. I want... All of it. Everything. I want you to love me." The last bit was a shameful confession, her dirtiest secret and the thing she hated most about herself.

 

He knew she was crying again because he could hear how jagged her breathing was; he didn't have the words he needed to tell her that all of it, all of him—every last worthless part—would have always been hers if she'd just asked. He felt pressure in the bridge of his nose, his eyes; he wasn't going to cry. Crying was only manipulation, for getting what he wanted. Men don't cry.

 

"Would you even believe me if I told you the truth?"

 

"T-tell me the truth," she whispered.

 

"You asked me months ago if I've ever been in love and I told you I have. And I am. With you," he said simply, pressing hard on the corners of his eyes.

 

The Lie let go of its own tail, straightened out, slithered off into the darkness.

 

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" An accusation, mournful, angry.

 

"Because you're marrying another man, Molly."

 

"No, I'm not," she said. A second later, he heard the clink of metal on the porcelain of the sink top. A cigarette hitting water. A door being unlocked.

 

"Don't ring off?" It was halfway between a plea and an order. She wanted him present in as much of a capacity as he could be. His heart began to pound wildly.

 

He heard her begin to gather her things and he realized the sounds were all wrong. She was at Tom's, all the way in bloody (sanitized, gentrified) Brixton. Sherlock would make it to her flat long before she did. He rose from his chair and hurried back to the bedroom.

 

He heard Tom shift in bed, mumble a question.

 

"I—I have to go. I'll phone you tomorrow. I'm sorry. I really am."

 

"It's him, isn't it?" Sherlock heard more clearly.

 

"It is."

 

"Are you going to fuck him? Again."

 

A mix of guilt and anger flooded him; he hoped Molly wouldn't say anything and would just leave.

 

"I'll phone you when your things are packed," she said.

 

Which would be before sunrise. He'd make sure of it.

 

*

 

He stayed on the phone with her until she was on her way through Newington and he was at her flat; the ex hadn't made a scene. He had to give him credit for that, however grudgingly; he never would have let her go without a fight (nevermind that he almost had).

 

When she got out of the cab, she looked like hell. It was the most beautiful he'd ever seen her, though; it was the first time he could look at her and say _this is mine, completely_.

 

He followed her inside, stripped her out of her jacket, her trainers, her pyjamas; led her to the shower, followed her in. They didn't have sex; they barely kissed. Just once, when she'd looked up at him with water running down her face and she'd looked so lost for a second that he had to.

 

He'd already changed the sheets; he didn't know if the ex had slept there recently or not, nor did he care. It was a fresh start. They slid into bed naked and he held her close. They hadn't said anything yet; neither of them knew where to start.

 

She pulled back, moved her hand from where it rested against his neck, ran the knuckle of her index finger along his jaw.

 

"I didn't say it before, but I do love you. Always have," she said, guilt still not letting her meet his eyes.

 

She didn't apologize for anything, though; he found himself feeling a new kind of respect for her. She was owning her mistake; it made him want to own his, too.

 

He kissed her, soft and sweet and tender; murmured his own _I love you_ against her lips.

 

They weren't starting over. They were going forward, together, like they should have been from the beginning.

 

*

 

Somewhere, in another life, another Molly Hooper stood in her darkened kitchen looking out the window over the sink. She knew something was wrong, she could feel it. Something was starting to come apart, and it wasn't just her perpetually cold feet pulling her away from Tom. Sherlock had left the wedding early, hadn't said a word to anyone. It wasn't her job to mind him, but she never stopped worrying after him. She didn't think she ever would, either.

 

Somewhere, in that other life, another Sherlock Holmes sat on a dirty mattress in a room full of strangers; he depressed the plunger and told himself _one time only. For closure_.

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Illicit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10984164) by [moonstone1520](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstone1520/pseuds/moonstone1520)




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